Next Week, Next Year
by Zarius
Summary: Just as April's best friend is receiving some bad news over the phone, a fateful evening leads the most important amphibian in Irma's life to her doorstep (tag for "The Maltese Hamster")


**TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES:**

**NEXT WEEK, NEXT YEAR**

**WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

* * *

"So how about tomorrow night you big hunk of man you?" Irma Langinstein asked over the phone, taking time out of her exhausting evening work hours at Channel Six to indulge in an all too rare and pleasurable activity.

The response she got from her date was not encouraging.

"Ok...how about next week? Next year?" she asked, hoping to salvage interest from him, a large and very loud portion of her subconscious already nagging for her making the conversation more awkward as the seconds ticked by.

A loud thud rung through the room, Irma's first instinct was to be less dapper, and to put an end to the conversation herself in as polite a fashion as possible, even taking the time to describe how delicate the situation seemed to be.

"Excuse me, sounds like somebody just passed out in front of my office" she replied, before she put the phone down and got up from her desk to confront the sole other occupant in the reception area.

She froze when she saw who it was.

"You?" she replied at the sight of one of her friend April O'Neil's amphibian allies, the bane of her boss Burne Thompson's existence, the Teenage Mutant Turtles of New York.

He was attired in a cream trench coat and hat, wore a purple bandanna and was clutching at his chest, finding it difficult to breath. He looked like he'd just been spat straight out of hell.

Instinctively, Irma knelt down to tend to him, she was concerned, and her heart beat a little faster.

"Which one are you?" she asked.

She wondered why she was so inquisitive about what his name was. It was an act of pure instinct.

"Donatello" the meek Turtle replied as Irma helped him and calmly placed her hands steadily on the back of his shell, pushing him towards a chair

"Got to find...April" Donatello continued, grasping for the faintest traces of breath he could salvage from his fragile physical state.

"I'll get her for you" Irma said, placing Donatello on the chair and dashing towards the door leading to the remainder of the Channel Six offices.

"You just stay put, before someone makes a news story out of you" she cautioned, knowing what kind of media firestorm would be inflicted upon the station where Donatello to be discovered.

As she scrambled down the halls to where April was, her mind thought back to how things had been over the phone earlier, how she had been lost in her own lust, thinking the world of someone who only saw her as a speck, or a mayfly conquest, and how all it took was someone less human reaching out for help to command a serious and precise reaction from her, causing her to drop whatever sentimental nonsense she was up to, and, without fear or her own uncertainty clouding any judgement, come to his aid.

She always wondered if she were capable of committing this mature, swift and selfless action for a real man in her life, and here she was applying that course of action to someone she'd only known for a few seconds.

When she fetched April, and the two tended to Donatello's injuries, soaking his feet in warm water, placing a towel over his head and hearing his incredible story of how he survived an entire building fall on his body as his brothers and sensei were captured by Tony Vivaldi's mobsters, Irma realised this calm, shy, yet assertive amphibian was a real fighter as well as a tried and true survivor.

She decided, arms folded, her eyes and ears fixed on his features and his words that she would get to know this Turtle more.

There would always be time in between for other men, other interests; she just wanted to know who this significant soul was behind the mask.

Her ability to learn was just as important as her capacity to love.

Who knows? If she were just a little more touched, her capacity to learn and to love would merge seamlessly with one another.

As much as she admired him, her conscious mind rattled her cage for even suggesting she inevitably bed a freak of nature like this. It wouldn't be today.

Her subconscious mind wasn't so sure.

Maybe next week?

Next year?


End file.
